Save the date!

About 8 months out from the wedding, we decided to order and send the save the dates. We had chosen a date and booked the venue, and we wanted to make sure that our guests marked it down on their calendars! I thought for sure that I wanted to send an adorable save the date magnet from VistaPrint like the one below:

(source)

I even went so far as to actually design and fill out the whole save the date. I was a day away from ordering. And then...I found Mrs. Bear Cub right here on Weddingbee and her amazing invitations. I just fell in love with the sustainability and the creativity that she used on her invitations. Her inspiration was very similar to the vision that I had in mind for my own invitations, so I checked out Twin Ravens Press to see what they had going on. And I fell in love. I called Kristin and thus began an epic journey of creating custom letterpress save the dates and invitations!

Save the dates were up first. I knew I wanted to use plantable seeded paper, but I wanted to keep them simple and straightforward, since the invitation was going to be much more elaborate. Here is what we came up with:

You can see more pictures and a blog post over at Twin Ravens Press

The paper is wonderfully textured with the seeds, and the letterpress printing. The colors came out great, and everyone loved the tiny picture of us.

I included a little note with them that explained that the paper was embedded with seeds, and all you need to do it lay it under a bit of soil, water, and watch it grow. Many of our guests have already done this and told me that they are sprouting. A word of advice: you may want to suggest that you guests plant it after they receive your invitation (as was our intention). Many of family members were so excited by the idea that they planted it right away and then had to call my mom and ask for the date...oy!

Coming soon - invitations! Kristin and I went back and forth for months to create a unique (and totally inspired by Mrs. Bear Cub) invitation that I cannot wait to show you!

Did you make save the dates? Did they come out the way you originally planned?